Rappaccini’s Daughter quote analysis activity
STEP ONE: Examine the relevance of the following quotes to the overall story. Identify
how the following quotes increase the meaning of the text and the overall moral message(s)
of the short story.
STEP TWO: Using the format I have begun modeling for you, copy and analyze ten quotes
of your own choosing.
1. “His writings, to do them justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality;
they might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of allegory, which
is apt to invest his plots and characters with the aspect of scenery and people in the
clouds and to steal away the human warmth out of his conceptions” (35).
2. “Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a
high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked not unworthy to have been the
palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armotial
bearings of a family long since extinct” (36).
3. “These reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heartbreak natural
to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily
as he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment” (36).
4. “Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with
her that Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of Southern Italy” (37).
5. “His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no common laborer,
but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb of
black” (38).
6. “Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, arrayed
with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day,
and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too
much…Giovanni’s fancy must have grown morbid while he looked down into the
garden; for the impression which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were
another flower, the human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more
beautiful than the richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, not to be
approached without a mask” (39).
7. “The truth is, our worshipful Dr. Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the
faculty—with perhaps one single exception—in Padua, or all Italy; but there are certain
grave objections to his professional character” (40).
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Any other quotes that you just can’t resist putting down to paper? No, you won’t get extra
credit, but it would be fun!